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Originally Posted by MiraclePieCo

Being a professional driver with over 4 million miles of nighttime driving experience with every type of lighting system imaginable, I consider myself somewhat of an expert in this subject.

Brighter headlights don't mean better visibility. Lighting the road in front of you brighter is much like being in a brightly-lit room and trying to see outside into the dark night. A brightly illuminated road surface actually makes one's pupils constrict, limiting night vision. Yes, it may be brighter, but no, you can't see better. I've driven trucks where guys raved about their new driving lights, only to find that the road surface was so bright that I couldn't see anything beyond the light pattern - kinda like standing next to a campfire and trying to see into the dark woods.

Brighter headlamps are nothing new; we've always had the technology to make brighter lights. It's just that nowadays people seem to have lost the common sense to realize that brighter lights cause severe vision problems for oncoming drivers. Too many people install the latest high-tech lighting systems, then never bother to get them properly aimed. I've seen motorists followed off freeway exits and their new expensive lights smashed out by irate drivers.

Whiter lights are also an illusion that persists from the old days of automotive generators which made the lights brighter/whiter when you revved the engine. Kelvin-rating (the scale of lamps from yellow to blue) is nothing more than a color distinction. If whiter light were better, they wouldn't make freeway street lamps yellow/orange sodium bulbs.

Thank you! I've been telling people this for years. Lights that focus a brighter spot further down the road can help. Putting more light in the area directly in front of you is like using brighter lights in the fog or snow. It's almost impossible to drive when folks with too much or too bright lighting are heading toward me. And when the lights aren't adjusted correctly it's even worse.

This forum always cracks me up. Someone wants to see pics of black headlights and get an opinion about the investment in LEDs, then people comment telling the OP that they are ugly and old trucks should not have modern(arguably much safer) technology. Pretty sure that's not what he asked.

Here's the thing: Most aftermarket LED "headlights" don't provide a correct pattern of light that's usable for the driver. Instead they provide a lot of light in front of the driver's face. The reflection created makes it harder to identify objects in the distance. So while the technology itself may be safer, the implementation is not. Wagner is invested real money in designing LED headlights. Wagner lights are substantially more than the $55.00 specials found on Ebay. They provide a great pattern with a nice, distinct cutoff. There are several other brands that do well and have DOT certification.